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Sword of the Stars (2006) reverse-engineering worklog. Infra docs live in trikilli services/re-lab.md.
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alex 55ea86f0d5 lane E3: the per-system visibility record read from the instruction stream, and the prediction before the build 
NVE is a per-(system, player) map of {ETS = turn of sighting, Eid = encounter type
present}. Primary writer 0x00756300, called from tail phase 17 under the gate
(AFlags >> PlyrIdx) & 1 -- byte-decoded at 0x007cf7a7..0x007cf7ce, not from the
decompiler. Three further accessors named, including the intel-sharing copy that
keeps the older sighting stamp. operator[] has exactly three callers and none of
them erases, so the record is a memory, not a state.

Also names ltis's writer (driver phase 29, AFlags != 0 -> ltis = Frame), closing
half of board.md's 'TShn/ltis: NOTHING NAMES THEIR WRITER'. TShn's own gate is
still unnamed and demonstrably NOT AFlags -- Spica is the counterexample.

Resolves lane B5's flagged indirect edge: SetExploredBy's vft[0x1c] is
ServerSystem vtable slot 7 at 0x007480b0, and it writes only an unserialised
runtime mask.

Prediction committed before the engine change exists: 204 -> 158 (46 closed, 32
of them the brief's target) and 103 -> 87 (16 closed), 0 regressed, with a
falsification section naming the corpus save that separates AFlags from VFlags.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01ARBgSooAfokKUy6wKUKEyZ
2026-09-08 13:26:46 -04:00
campaign roadmap: rewrite around the engine as the product; milestone split into Rung A (modulo command stream) and Rung B (needs AI); 13 stale board rows marked superseded 2026-09-08 13:04:13 -04:00
findings lane E3: the per-system visibility record read from the instruction stream, and the prediction before the build 2026-09-08 13:26:46 -04:00
ghidra lane D2: the ship-design catalogue -- how designs persist, hull size, and the 0x400 flag 2026-09-08 12:45:36 -04:00
guides rules: 18 - measure first, the lab exists; static reading explains what you measured 2026-09-08 11:20:30 -04:00
notes init commit 2026-09-07 12:31:56 -04:00
objects regenerate both headers (669 addresses); track objects/generated so the shared clone stops sitting dirty 2026-09-08 07:36:16 -04:00
scripts lane V2: vtable inversion — resolve indirect call edges image-wide 2026-09-08 12:05:05 -04:00
tools tools/displacement.py: the honest progress metric - what fraction of the game runs on our code, by rung, with coverage caveats attached 2026-09-08 13:08:06 -04:00
verify lane E2: T36 measured with the ship census wired in -- 29 closed / 7 regressed, and the two things it is still blocked on 2026-09-08 13:25:31 -04:00
.gitignore lane D: automated struct recovery from the IStreamable serializers 2026-09-08 05:51:37 -04:00
README.md guides: RE how-to for 2000s MSVC/DX9 games (98 sources); queue replay-checksum, class recovery, apitrace/TTD 2026-09-07 18:05:58 -04:00

README.md

sots-re

Reverse-engineering worklog for Sword of the Stars (2006, SOTS1) — the 32-bit DX9 original + expansions. The nitty-gritty: static/dynamic analysis notes, Ghidra & ReVa scripts, function/struct maps, D3D9 call traces, decomp progress, findings.

Where this runs

Analysis lab on spicy (PVE, 192.168.3.201):

  • CT111 sots-re — Linux workspace: Ghidra + headless ReVa server, radare2/rizin/cutter, binwalk. Hosts the Samba share and this repo's working tree at /srv/re-lab/notes.
  • VM140 sots-re-win10 — Win10 runtime + dynamic analysis (x64dbg, Cheat Engine, RenderDoc/apitrace, DXVK→CPU-Vulkan for GPU-less rendering).

Infra (guests, storage, network, share, ReVa endpoint) is documented from the system-maintainer POV in trikilli → services/re-lab.md. This repo is everything else.

Layout

  • findings/ — the running findings log (append-only), one file per subsystem.
  • ghidra/ — exported scripts, data-type archives, struct definitions.
  • traces/ — D3D9 / Win32 API call captures + analysis.
  • scripts/ — helper tooling (loaders, extractors, parsers).
  • notes/ — session notes, scratch, hypotheses.

Ownership / legality

Game binaries come from the owner's own GOG/Steam copy. RE is for personal interoperability, bug-fixing, and preservation. Binaries themselves are not committed here (see .gitignore) — they live on the lab's Samba share /srv/re-lab/samples.

Campaign (how this repo is run)

A 4-agent crew (defined in ~/.claude/agents/re-*.md) runs the exploration: re-quartermaster (backlog + board) → re-analyst (maps via ReVa) → re-verifier (proves vs real data; old-vs-new differential once reimpl starts) → re-scribe (files the note, links it, commits).

  • campaign/board.md — live status board (start here).
  • Live tracking = Forgejo issues on alex/sots-re (labels status/* are the kanban columns; type/*, conf/*). campaign/board.md is the editable mirror — publish with scripts/forgejo_campaign.py bootstrap (needs FORGEJO_TOKEN).
  • campaign/backlog.md — prioritized target queue.
  • campaign/open-questions.md — unresolved threads.
  • findings/_template.md — the record format every finding follows.
  • findings/{objects,control-flow,subsystems}/ — the growing engine map.
  • verify/{parsers,traces,harness,results}/ — validation: struct parsers now, golden-trace replay + shim compare-mode for reimplementation.
  • ghidra/ — exported scripts + datatype archives.

Approach & north star: findings/00-strategy.md. Binary facts: findings/01-fingerprint.md.

Sibling repo

alex/sots-engine — the from-scratch engine source (clean-room, public-capable). This repo keeps the evidence + planning for both; binary facts cross over only via ghidra/addresses.json → tools/gen_addresses.py.

  • guides/re-windows-2000s-howto.md — annotated bibliography + how-to for RE of mid-2000s MSVC/DX9 Windows games, with our-experience call-outs.